The battleground of international competitiveness in the 21st century is innovation, and cities are increasingly viewed as the foremost places where innovation takes place. For cities to flourish and enjoy a sustainable future in a high velocity, knowledge intensive, networked economy, they must continually re-invent themselves, and that requires talent, deep resources of human capital, which may not be adequately provided from local resources alone. The paper demonstrates that the talent pool is the crucial asset that can attract firms, creates new levels of enterprise, and enables a city to re-invent itself as it is buffeted by increasing technological, social and environmental pressures. But attracting talent alone is not enough, a city must connect with it too as highlighted in the previous submission two. In this periodical article which builds on the paper published in IMPP in 2008, the author describes the practical actions and programs that cities need to apply to develop local talent, attract international talent, retain it, and above all connect these resources and their associated networks to local firms and institutions.